Written: September 1907
Published:
Published in November 1907 in the collection Twelve Years, St. Petersburg.
Published according to the book text.
Source:Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1972,
Moscow,
Volume 13,
pages 94-113.
Translated: Bernard Isaacs
Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
(2004).
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display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
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• README

The volume of collected articles and pamphlets here offered
to the reader covers, the period from 1895 through 1905. The theme of these
writings is the programmatic, tactical, and organisational problems of the
Russian Social-Democratic movement, problems which are being posed and
dealt with all the time in the struggle against the Right wing of the
Marxist trend in Russia.

At first the struggle was fought on purely theoretical ground against
Mr. Struve, the chief spokesman of our legal Marxism of the nineties. The close
of 4894 and the beginning of 1895 saw an abrupt change in our legal
press. Marxist views found their way into it for the first time, presented not
only by leaders of the Emancipation of Labour
group[18] living abroad, but also by Social-Democrats in Russia. This
literary revival and the heated controversy between the Marxists and the
old Narodnik leaders, who (N. K. Mikhailovsky, for instance) had up till
then held practically undivided sway in our progressive literature, were
the prelude to an upswing in the mass labour movement in Russia. These
literary activities of the Russian Marxists were the direct forerunners of
active proletarian struggle, of the famous St. Petersburg strikes of 1896,
which ushered in an era of steadily mounting workers’ movement—the
most potent factor in the whole of our revolution.

The Social-Democrats in those days wrote under conditions which compelled them
to use Aesopian language. and confine themselves to the most general principles,
which were farthest removed from practical activity and politics.
This did much to unite the heterogenous elements of the Marxist movement in
the fight against the Narodniks. Besides the Russian Social-Democrats
abroad and at home this fight was waged also by men like Struve, Bulgakov,
Tugan-Baranovsky, Berdyayev, and others. They were bourgeois democrats
for whom the break with Narodism signified transition from
petty-bourgeois (or peasant) socialism to bourgeois liberalism, and not to
proletarian socialism as was the case with us.

The history of the Russian revolution in general, the history of the Cadet
Party in particular, and especially the evolution of Mr. Struve (to the verge of
Octobrism) have now made this truth self-evident, made it current small coin for
our publicists. But in 1894-95, this truth had to be demonstrated on the basis
of relatively minor deviations by one or another writer from Marxism; at that
time the coin had still to be minted. That. is why, in now print—ing the
full text of my article against Mr. Struve (“The Economic Content of
Narodism and the Criticism of It in Mr. Struve’s Book”, over the
signature of K. Tulin in the symposium Material on the Question of the
Economic Development of Russia, published in St. Petersburg in 1885 and
destroyed by the
censor[1]
),
I pursue a triple purpose. First, since the reading public is familiar with
Mr. Struve’s book and the Narodnik articles of 1894-95 against the
Marxists, it is important to give a criticism of Mr. Struve’s
viewpoint. Secondly, in order to reply to repeated accusations of alliance
with these gentry, and in order to appraise the very significant political
career of Mr. Struve himself, it is important to cite the warning to
Mr. Struve made by a revolutionary Social-Democrat simultaneously
with our general statements against the Narodniks. Thirdly, the old, and in
many respects outdated, polemic with Struve is important as an instructive
example, one that shows the practical and political value of irreconcilable
theoretical polemics Revolutionary Social-Democrats have been accused times
without number of an excessive penchant for such polemics with the
“Economists”, the Bernsteinians, and the Mensheviks. Today,
too, these accusations
are being bandied about by the “conciliators” inside the
Social-Democratic Party and the “sympathising” semi-socialists
outside it. An excessive penchant for polemics and splits, we are all too
often told, is typical of the Russians in general, of the Social-Democrats
in particular and of the Bolsheviks especially. But the fact is all too
often overlooked that the excessive penchant for skipping from socialism to
liberalism is engendered by the conditions prevailing in the capitalist
countries in general, the conditions of the bourgeois revolution in Russia
in particular, and the conditions of the life and work of our intellectuals
especially. From that standpoint it is well worth taking a look at the
events of ten years ago, the theoretical differences with
“Struveism” which then began to take shape, and the minor
(minor at first glance) divergencies that led to a complete political
demarcation between the parties and to an irreconcilable struggle in
parliament, in the press, at public meetings, etc.

The article against Mr. Struve, I should add, is based on a paper I read in the
autumn of 1894 to a small circle of Marxists of that time. The group of
Social-Democrats then active in St. Petersburg, and who a year later founded
the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, was
represented in this circle by St., R., and myself. The legal Marxist writers
were represented by P. B. Struve, A. N. Potresov, and
K.[19] The subject of my paper was “The Reflection of Marxism in
Bourgeois Literature”. As will be seen from the title, the polemic
with Struve here was incomparably sharper and more definite (in its
Social-Democratic conclusions) than in the article published in the spring
of 1895. The latter was toned down partly for censorship reasons and partly
for the sake of an “alliance” with the legal Marxists for joint
struggle against Narodism. That the “leftward jolt” which the
St. Peters burg Social-Democrats then gave Mr. Struve has not remained
altogether without result is clearly shown by Mr. Struve’s article in
the police-destroyed symposium of 1895, and by several of his articles in
Novoye Slovo[20]
(1897).

Moreover, in reading the 1895 article against Mr. Struve it should be borne in
mind that in many respects it is a
synopsis of subsequent economic studies (notably The Development of
Capitalism[2]
).
Lastly, I should draw the reader’s attention to the concluding pages
of this article, which emphasise the positive (from the Marxist
standpoint) features and aspects of Narodism as a revolutionary-democratic
trend in a country that was on the threshold of bourgeois revolution. This
was a theoretical formulation of the propositions which twelve or thirteen
years later were to find their practical and political expression in the
“Left bloc” at the elections to the Second Duma and in the
“Left bloc” tactics. That section of the Mensheviks which
opposed the idea of a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the
proletariat and peasantry, maintaining that a Left bloc was absolutely
impermissible, had on this issue gone back on the very old and very
important tradition of the revolutionary Social-Democrats—a tradition
vigorously up held by
Zarya[21] and the old
Iskra.[22] It stands to reason that the conditional and limited
permissibility of “Left bloc” tactics follows inevitably from
the same fundamental theoretical Marxist views on Narodism.

The article against Struve (1894-95) is followed by The Tasks of the Russian
Social-Democrats,[3]
written to wards the close of 1897 on the basis of the experience of
Social-Democratic activities in St. Petersburg in 1895. It presents in a
positive form the views which in other articles and pamphlets in this
volume are expressed in the form of polemics with the Social-Democratic
Right wing. The various prefaces to the Tasks are reprinted here
in order to show the connection between these activities and the various
periods of our Party’s development (for instance, Axelrod’s
preface emphasises the pamphlet’s connection with the struggle
against “Economism”, and the 1902 preface stresses the
evolution of the Narodnaya Volya and Narodnoye Pravo
members[23]).

The article “The Persecutors of the Zemstvo and the Hannibals of
Liberalism”[4]
was published abroad in Zarya in 1901. It dissolves, so
to speak, Social-Democratic association
with Struve as a political leader. In 1895, we warned him and cautiously
dissociated ourselves from him as an ally. In 1901, we declared war on him
as a liberal who was incapable of championing even purely democratic
demands with any consistency.

In 1895, several years before the
Bernsteinism[24] in the West and before the complete break with Marxism
on the part of quite a few “advanced” writers in Russia, I
point ed out that Mr. Struve was an unreliable Marxist with whom
Social-Democrats should have no truck. In 1901, several years before the
Cadet Party emerged in the Russian revolution, and before the political
fiasco of this party in the First and Second Dumas, I pointed out the very
features of Russian bourgeois liberalism which were to be fully revealed in
the mass political actions of 1905-07. The article “Hannibals of
Liberalism” criticised the false reasoning of one liberal, but is now
almost fully applicable to the policy of the biggest liberal party in our
revolution. As for those who are inclined to believe that we Bolsheviks
went back on the old Social-Democratic policy in regard to liberalism when
we ruthlessly combated constitutional illusions and fought the Cadet Party
in 1905-07—the article “Hannibals of Liberalism” will
show them their mistake. The Bolsheviks remained true to the traditions of
revolutionary Social-Democracy and did not succumb to the bourgeois
intoxication to which the liberals gave their support during the
“constitutional zig zag” and which temporarily misled the
Right-wing members of our Party.

The next pamphlet., What Is To Be Done?, was published abroad early in
1902.[5]
It is a criticism of the Right wing, which was no longer a literary trend
but existed within the Social-Democratic organisation. The first
Social-Democratic congress was held in 1898. It founded the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party, represented by the Union of Russian
Social-Democrats Abroad, which incorporated the Emancipation of Labour
group. The central Party bodies, however, were suppressed by the police and
could not be re-established. There was, in fact, no united
party: unity was still only an idea, a directive. The infatuation with the
strike movement and economic struggles gave rise to a peculiar form of
Social-Democratic opportunism, known as “Economism”. When the
Iskra group began to function abroad at the very end of 1900,
the split over this issue was already an accomplished fact. In the
spring of 1900, Plekhanov resigned from the Union of Russian
Social-Democrats Abroad and set up an organisation of his
own—Sotsial-Demokrat.

Officially,Iskra began its work independently of the two groups, but
for all practical purposes it sided with Plekhanov’s group against the
Union. An attempt to merge the two (at the Congress of the Union and the
Sotsial-Demokrat in Zurich, June 1901) failed. What Is To Be
Done? gives a systematic account of the reasons for the divergence of views
and of the nature of Iskra tactics and organisational activity.

What Is To Be Done? is frequently mentioned by the Mensheviks, the
present opponents of the Bolsheviks, as well as by writers belonging to the
bourgeois-liberal camp (Cadets,
Bezzaglavtsi[25] in the newspaper Tovarishch, etc.). I have,
therefore, decided to reprint the pamphlet here, slightly abridged,
omitting only the details of organisational relations and minor polemical
remarks. Concerning the essential content of this pamphlet it is necessary
to draw the attention of the modern reader to the following.

The basic mistake made by those who now criticise What Is To Be Done?
is to treat the pamphlet apart from its connection with the concrete historical
situation of a definite, and now long past, period in the development of our
Party. This mistake was strikingly demonstrated, for instance, by Parvus (not to
mention numerous Mensheviks), who, many years after the pamphlet appeared, wrote
about its incorrect or exaggerated ideas on the subject of an organisation of
professional revolutionaries.

Today these statements look ridiculous, as if their authors want to dismiss a
whole period in the development of our Party, to dismiss gains which, in their
time, had to be fought for, but which have long ago been consolidated and have
served their purpose.

To maintain today that Iskra exaggerated (in 1901 and
19021) the idea of an organisation of professional revolutionaries, is
like reproaching the Japanese, after the Russo-Japanese War, for
having exaggerated the strength of Russia’s armed forces, for having
prior to the war exaggerated the need to prepare for fighting these
forces. To win victory the Japanese had to marshal all their forces against
the probable maximum of Russian forces. Unfortunately, many of those who
judge our Party are outsiders, who do not know the subject, who do not
realise that today the idea of an organisation of professional
revolutionaries has already scored a complete victory. That
victory would have been impossible if this idea had not been pushed to the
forefront at the time, if we had not “exaggerated” so
as to drive it home to people who were trying to prevent it from being
realised.

What Is To Be Done? is a summary of Iskra tactics and
Iskra organisational policy in 1901 an4 1902. Precisely a
“summary”, no more and no less. That will be clear to
anyone who takes the trouble to go through the file of Iskra for 1901
and
1902.[6]
But to pass judgement on that summary without knowing
Iskra’s struggle against the then dominant trend of
Economism, without understanding that struggle, is sheer idle
talk. Iskra fought for an organisation of professional
revolutionaries. It fought with especial vigour in 1901 and 1902, vanquished
Economism, the then dominant trend, and finally created this
organisation in 1903. It preserved it in face of the subsequent split in the
Iskrist ranks and all the convulsions of the period of storm and stress; it
preserved it throughout the Russian revolution; it preserved it intact from
1901-02 to 1907.

And now, when the fight for this organisation has long been won, when the seed
has ripened, and the harvest gathered, people come along and tell us:
“You exaggerated the idea of an organisation of professional
revolutionaries!” Is this not ridiculous?

Take the whole pre-revolutionary period and the first two and a half years of
the revolution (1905-07). Compare our Social-Democratic Party during this whole
period with the other parties in respect of unity, organisation, and continuity
of policy. You will have to admit that in this respect our Party is
unquestionably superior to all the others—the Cadets,
the Socialist-Revolutionaries, etc. Before the revolution it drew up a programme
which was formally accepted by all Social-Democrats, and when changes were made
in it there was no split over the programme. From 1903 to 1907 (formally from
1905 to 1906), the Social-Democratic Party, despite the split in its ranks, gave
the public the fullest information on the inner-party situation (minutes of the
Second General Congress, the Third Bolshevik, and the Fourth General, or
Stockholm, congresses). Despite the split, the Social-Democratic Party earlier
than any of the other parties was able to take ad vantage of the temporary spell
of freedom to build a legal organisation with an ideal democratic structure, an
electoral system, and representation at congresses according to the number of
organised members. You will not find this, even today, either in the
Socialist-Revolutionary or the Cadet parties, though the latter is practically
legal, is the best organised bourgeois party, and has incomparably greater
funds, scope for using the press, and opportunities for legal activities than
our Party. And take the elections to the Second Duma, in which all parties
participated—did they not clearly show the superior organisational unity
of our Party and Duma group?

The question arises, who accomplished, who brought into being this superior
unity, solidarity, and stability of our Party? It was accomplished by the
organisation of professional revolutionaries, to the building of which
Iskra made the greatest contribution. Anyone who knows our
Party’s history well, anyone who has had a hand in building the Party, has
but to glance at the delegate list of any of the groups at, say, the London
Congress, in order to he convinced of this and notice at once that it is a list
of the old membership, the central core that had worked hardest of all to build
up the Party and make it what it is. Basically, of course, their success was due
to the fact that
the working class, whose best representatives built the Social-Democratic
Party, for objective economic reasons possesses a greater capacity for
organisation than any other class in capitalist society. Without this
condition an organisation of professional revolutionaries would be nothing
more than a plaything, an adventure, a mere signboard. What Is To Be
Done? repeatedly emphasises this, pointing out that the organisation
it advocates has no meaning apart from its connection with the
“genuine revolutionary class that is spontaneously rising to
struggle”. But the objective maximum ability of the proletariat to
unite in a class is realised through living people, and only through
definite forms of organisation. In the historical conditions that prevailed
in Russia in 1900-05, no organisation other than Iskra could
have created the Social-Democratic Labour Party we now have. The
professional revolutionary has played his part in the history of Russian
proletarian socialism. No power on earth can now undo this work, which has
outgrown the narrow framework of the “circles” of 1902-05. Nor
can the significance of the gains already won be shaken by belated
complaints that the militant tasks of the movement were exaggerated by
those who at that time had to fight to ensure the correct way of
accomplishing these tasks.

I have just referred to the narrow framework of the circles of the old
Iskra period (beginning with issue No. 51, at the close of 1903,
Iskra turned to Menshevism, proclaiming that “a gulf separates
the old and the new Iskra”—Trotsky’s words in a pamphlet
approved by the Menshevik Iskra editors). This circle spirit has to be
briefly explained to the present-day reader. The pamphlets What Is To Be
Done? and One Step Forward,
Two Steps Back[7]
published in this collection present to the reader a heated, at times
bitter and destructive, controversy within the circles
abroad. Undoubtedly, this struggle has many unattractive
features. Undoubtedly, it is something that could only be possible in a
young and immature workers’ movement in the country in
question. Undoubtedly, the present leaders of the present workers’ movement
in Russia will have to
break with many of the circle traditions, forget and discard many of the trivial
features of circle activity and circle squabbles, so as to concentrate on the
tasks of Social-Democracy in the present period. Only the broadening of the
Party by enlisting proletarian elements can, in conjunction with open
mass activity, eradicate all the residue of the circle spirit which has been
inherited from the past and is unsuited to our present tasks. And the transition
to a democratically organised workers’ party, proclaimed by the Bolsheviks in
Novaya Zhizn[26]
in November 1905,[8]
i.e., as soon as the conditions appeared for legal activity—this
transition was virtually an irrevocable break with the old circle ways that
had outlived their day.

Yes, “that had had outlived their day”, for it is not enough to
condemn the old circle spirit; its significance in the special circumstances of
the past period must be understood. The circles were necessary in their day and
played a positive role. In an autocratic state, especially in the situation
created by the whole history of the Russian revolutionary movement,
the socialist workers’ party could not develop except from these
circles. And the circles, i.e., close-knit, exclusive groups uniting a very
small number of people and nearly always based on personal friendship, were a
necessary stage in the development of socialism and the workers’ movement in
Russia. As the movement grew, it was confronted with the task of uniting these
circles, forming strong links between them, and establishing continuity. This
called for a firm base of operations “beyond the reach” of the
autocracy—i.e., abroad. The circles abroad, therefore, came into
being through necessity. There was no contact between them; they had no
authority over them in the shape of the Party in Russia, and it was inevitable
that they should differ in their understanding of the movement’s main
tasks at the given stage, that is, an understanding of how exactly to
set up a base of operations and in what way they could help
to build the Party as a whole. A struggle between the circles was, therefore,
inevitable. Today, in retrospect, we can clearly see which of the
circles was really in a position
to act as a base of operations. But at that time, when the various circles
were just beginning their work, no one could say that and the controversy
could be resolved only through struggle. Parvus, I remember, subsequently
blamed the old Iskra for waging a destructive circle war and
advocated after the event a conciliatory policy. That is an easy thing to
say after the event, and to say it reveals a failure to understand the
conditions then prevailing. For one thing, there was no criterion by which
to judge the strength or importance of one or another circle. The
importance of many of them, which are now forgotten, was exaggerated, but
in their time they wanted through struggle to assert their right to
existence. Secondly, the differences among the circles were over the
direction the work was to take, work which at the time was new to
them. I noted at the time (in What Is To Be Done?) that these
seemingly minor differences were actually of immense importance, since at
the beginning of this new work, at the beginning of the Social-Democratic
movement, the definition of the general nature of the work and movement
would very substantially affect propaganda, agitation, and
organisation. All subsequent disputes between the Social-Democrats
concerned the direction of the Party’s political activity on specific
issues. But at that time the controversy was over the most general
principles and the fundamental aims of all Social-Democratic
policy generally.

The circles played their part and are now, of course, obsolete. But they became
obsolete only because the struggle that they waged posed the key problems of the
Social-Democratic movement in the sharpest possible manner and solved them in
an irreconcilable revolutionary spirit, thereby creating a firm basis for broad
party activity.

Of particular questions raised in the literary discussion over What Is To Be
Done? I shall comment on only two. Writing in Iskra in 1904, soon
after the appearance of One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, Plekhanov
declared that he differed from me in principle on the question of spontaneity
and political consciousness. I did not reply either to that declaration (except
for a brief note in the
Geneva newspaper
Vperyod[27]),[9]
or to the numerous repetitions of it in Menshevik literature. I did not
reply because Plekhanov’s criticism was obviously mere cavilling,
based on phrases torn out of context, on particular expressions which I had
not quite adroitly or precisely formulated. Moreover, he ignored the
general content and the whole spirit of my pamphlet What Is To Be
Done? which appeared in March 1902. The draft Party programme (framed
by Plekhanov and amended by the Iskra editors) appeared in June or
July 1902. Its formulation of the relation between spontaneity and
political consciousness was agreed upon by all the Iskra editors
(my disputes with Plekhanov over the programme, which took place in the
editorial board, were not on this point, but on the question of small
production being ousted by large-scale production, concerning which I
called for a more precise formula than Plekhanov’s, and on the
difference in the standpoint of the proletariat or of the labouring classes
generally; on this point I insisted on a narrower definition of the purely
proletarian character of the Party).

Consequently, there could be no question of any difference principle between
the draft Party programme and What To Be Done? on this issue. At the
Second Congress (August 1903) Martynov, who was then an Economist, challenged
our views on spontaneity and political consciousness as set forth in the
programme. He was opposed by all the Iskrists, as I emphasise in One Step
Forward. Hence it is clear that the controversy was essentially between the
Iskrists and the Economists, who attacked what was common both to
What Is To Be Done? and the programme drafts. Nor at the Second
Congress did I have any intention of elevating my own formulations, as given in
What Is To Be Done?, to “programmatic” level, constituting
special principles. On the contrary, the expression I used— and it has
since been frequently quoted—was that the Economists had gone to one
extreme. What Is To Be Done?, I said, straightens out what had been
twisted by the Economists (cf. minutes of the Second R.S.D.L.P. Congress in
1903, Geneva, 1904). I emphasised that just because we were
so vigorously straightening out whatever had been twisted our line of
action would always be the
straightest.[10]
The meaning of these words is clear enough: What Is To Be Done? is
a controversial correction of Economist distortions and it would be wrong
to regard the pamphlet in any other light. It should be added that
Plekhanov’s article against the pamphlet was not reprinted
in the new Iskra collection (Two Years), and for that
reason I do not here deal with Plekhanov’s arguments, but merely
explain the issue involved to the present-day reader, who may come across
references to it in very many Menshevik publications.

My second comment concerns the question of economic struggle and the
trade. unions. My views on this subject have been frequently misrepresented in
the literature, and I must, therefore, emphasise that many pages in What Is
To Be Done? are devoted to explaining the immense importance of
economic struggle and the trade unions. In particular, I advocated
neutrality of the trade unions, and have not altered that view
in the pamphlets or newspaper articles written since then, despite the numerous
assertions by my opponents. Only the London R.S.D.L.P. Congress and the
Stuttgart International Socialist Congress led me to conclude that trade-union
neutrality is not defensible as a principle. The only correct
principle is the closest possible alignment of the unions with the Party. Our
policy must be to bring the unions closer to the Party and link them with
it. That policy should be pursued perseveringly and persistently in all our
propaganda, agitation, and organising activity, without trying to obtain mere
“recognition” of our views and without expelling from the trade
unions those of a different opinion.

* * *

The pamphlet One Step Forward, Two Steps Back was published in Geneva
in the summer of. 1904. It reviews the first stage of the split between
the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks,
which began at the Second Congress (August 1903). I have cut this pamphlet
down by half, since-minor details of the organisational struggle,
especially points concerning the personal composition of the Party centres,
cannot possibly be of any interest to the present-day reader and, in fact,
are best forgotten. But what is important, I think, is the analysis of the
controversy over tactical and other conceptions at the Second Congress, and
the polemic with the Mensheviks on matters of organisation. Both are
essential for an understanding of Menshevism and Bolshevism as trends which
have left their mark upon all the activities of the workers’ party in our
revolution.

Of the discussions at the Second Congress of the Social-Democratic Party, I
will mention the debate on the agrarian programme. Events have clearly
demonstrated that our programme at the time (return of the
cut-off lands[28]) was much too limited and, underestimated the
strength of the revolutionary-democratic peasant movement—I shall
deal with this in greater detail in Volume 2 of the present
publication.[11]
Here it is important to emphasise that even this excessively
limited agrarian programme was at that time considered too
broad by the Social-Democratic Right wing. Martynov and other
Economists opposed it on the grounds that it went too far! This shows the
great practical importance of the whole struggle that the old
Iskra waged against. Economism, against attempts to narrow down
and belittle the character of Social-Democratic policy.

At that time (the first half of 1904) our differences with the
Mensheviks were restricted to organisational issues. I described the
Menshevik attitude as “opportunism in questions of
organisation”. Objecting to this P. B. Axelrod wrote to Kautsky:
“My feeble mind just cannot grasp this thing called ‘opportunism in
questions of organisation’ which is now being brought to the fore as
something independent and having no direct connection with programmatic and
tactical views.” (Letter of June 6, 1904, reprinted in the
new-Iskra collection Two Years, Part II, p. 149.)

The direct connection of opportunism in organisational views with that in
tactical views has been sufficiently demonstrated by the whole record of
Menshevism in 1905-07. As for this “incomprehensible thing”,
“opportunism in questions of organisation”, practical
experience has borne out my appraisal more brilliantly than I could ever
have expected. It suffices to say that even the Menshevik
Cherevanin now has to admit (see his pamphlet on the London
R.S.D.L.P. Congress of 1907) that Axelrod’s organisational plans (the
much-talked-of “labour congress”, etc.) could only lead to
splits that would ruin the proletarian cause. What is more, the same
Cherevanin tells us in this pamphlet that in London Plekhanov had to con
tend with “organisational anarchism” within the
Menshevik faction. And so it was not for nothing that I fought
“opportunism in questions of organisation” in 1904, seeing that
in 1907 both Cherevanin and Plekhanov have had to recognise the
“organisational anarchism” of influential Mensheviks.

From organisational opportunism the Mensheviks passed to tactical
opportunism. The pamphlet, The Zemstvo Campaign and “Iskra’s”
Plan[12]
(published in Geneva towards the end of 1904, in November or December if I
am not mistaken) marks their first step in that direction. One frequently
finds statements in current, writings that the dispute over the Zemstvo
campaign was due to the fact that the Bolsheviks saw no value at all in
organising demonstrations before the Zemstvo people. The reader will see
that this was not the case at all. The differences were due to the
Mensheviks insisting that we should not cause panic among the
liberals, and, still more to the fact that, after the Rostov strike of
1902, the summer strikes and barricades of 1903, and on the eve of January
9, 1905, the Mensheviks extolled the idea, of demonstrations before the
Zemstvo
people[29] as the highest type of demonstration. Our attitude to
this Menshevik “Zemstvo campaign plan” was expressed in the
heading of an article on the subject in the Bolshevik paper
Vperyod, No. I (Geneva, January 1905):
“Good Demonstrations of Proletarians and Poor Arguments of Certain
Intellectuals.”[13]

The last pamphlet included in this collection, Two Tactics of
Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, appeared in Geneva in the
summer of
1905.[14]
It is a systematic statement of the fundamental tactical
differences with the Mensheviks. These differences were fully formulated in
the resolutions of the Third (spring) R.S.D.L.P. (Bolshevik) Congress in
London and the Menshevik Conference in Geneva which established the
basic divergence between the Bolshevik and Menshevik appraisals of
our bourgeois revolution as a whole from the standpoint of the
proletariat’s tasks. The Bolsheviks claimed for the proletariat the
role of leader in the democratic revolution. The Mensheviks
reduced its role to that of an “extreme opposition”. The
Bolsheviks gave a positive definition of the class character and class,
significance of the revolution, maintaining that a victorious revolution
implied a “revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat
and the peasantry”. The Mensheviks always interpreted the bourgeois
revolution so incorrectly as to result in their acceptance of a position in
which the role of the proletariat would be subordinate to and dependent on
the bourgeoisie.

How these differences of principle were reflected in practical activities is
well known. The Bolsheviks boycotted the Bulygin Duma: the Mensheviks
vacillated. The Bolsheviks boycotted the Witte Duma; the Mensheviks vacillated,
appealing to the people to vote, but not for the Duma, The Mensheviks supported
a Cadet Ministry and Cadet policy in the First Duma, while the Bolsheviks,
parallel with propaganda in favour of an “executive committee of the
Left”,[30] resolutely exposed constitutional illusions and Cadet
counter-revolutionism. Further, the Bolsheviks worked for a Left bloc in
the Second Duma elections, while the Mensheviks called for a bloc with the
Cadets, and so on and so forth.

Now it seems that the “Cadet period” in the Russian revolution (the
expression is from the pamphlet The Victoryof the Cadets and the Tasks of the Workers’ Party, March
1906)[15]
has come to an end. The counter-revolutionary nature of the Cadets has been
fully exposed. The Cadets themselves are beginning to admit that they had
been combating the revolution all along, and Mr. Struve frankly reveals the
inner thoughts of Cadet liberalism. The more attentively the
class-conscious proletariat now looks back on this Cadet period, on the
whole of this “constitutional zigzag”, the more clearly will it
see that the Bolsheviks correctly appraised beforehand both this period and
the essence of the Cadet Party, and that the Mensheviks were in fact
pursuing a wrong policy, one that, objectively, was tantamount to throwing
over independent proletarian policy in favour of subordinating the
proletariat to bourgeois liberalism.

* * *

In casting a retrospective glance at the struggle of the two trends in Russian
Marxism and Social-Democracy during the last twelve years (1895-1907), one
cannot avoid the conclusion that “legal Marxism”,
“Economism”, and “Menshevism” are diverse forms of one
and the, same historical tendency. The “legal Marxism” of
Mr. Struve (1894) and those like him was a reflection of Marxism in
bourgeois literature. “Economism”, as a distinct trend in
Social-Democratic activities in 1897 and subsequent years, virtually
implemented the programme set forth in the bourgeois liberal
“Credo”: economic struggle for the workers, political struggle
for the liberals. Menshevism is not only a literary trend, not only a tendency
in Social-Democratic activity, but a close-knit faction, which during the first
period of the Russian revolution (1905-07) pursued its own distinct
policy—a policy which in practice subordinated the proletariat to
bourgeois
liberalism.[16]

In all capitalist countries the proletariat is inevitably connected by
a thousand transitional links with its neighbour on the right, the petty
bourgeoisie. In all workers’ parties there inevitably emerges a more or
less clearly delineated Right wing which, in its views, tactics, and
organisational “line”, reflects the opportunist tendencies of
the petty bourgeoisie. In such a petty-bourgeois country as Russia, in the
era of bourgeois revolution, in the formative period of the young
Social-Democratic Labour Party, these tendencies were bound to manifest
themselves much more sharply, definitely, and clearly than anywhere else in
Europe. Familiarity with the various forms in which this tendency is
displayed in the Russian Social-Democratic movement in different periods of
its development is necessary in order to strengthen revolutionary
Marxism. and steel the Russian working class in its struggle for
emancipation.

[16]An analysis of the struggle of the various trends and shades of opinion
at the Second Party Congress (cf. One Step Forward, Two Steps
Back, 1904) will show beyond all doubt the direct and close ties
between the Economism of 1897 and subsequent years and Menshevism. The link
between Economism in the Social-Democratic movement and the “legal
Marxism” or “Struveism” of 1895-97 was demonstrated
by me in the pamphlet What Is To Be Done? (1902). Legal
Marxism-Economism-Menshevism are linked not only ideologically, but also by
their direct historical continuity. —Lenin

[17]In 1907, the Zerno Book Publishers, directed by M. S. Kedrov,
decided to bring out a three-volume collection of Lenin’s works under
the general title Twelve Years. The original contract for this
publication is in the Central Party Archive of the Institute of
Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union. Only the first volume and part one of the second
appeared. The first volume contained: The Economic Content of Narodism
and the Criticism of it in Mr. Struve’s Book; The Tasks of the
Russian Social-Democrats; The Persecutors of the Zemstvoand the Hannibals of Liberalism; What is To Be Done?;
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back; The Zemstvo Campaign and
Iskra’s Plan; Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the
Democratic Revolution. The first volume came off the press in November
1907 (the cover gives the date 1908) and was confiscated soon after its
appearance, but a large part of the edition was saved; the book continued
to circulate illegally.

Volume II was to contain Lenin’s writings on the agrarian
question. Owing to persecution by the censorship it was decided to drop the
title Twelve Years and to issue the second volume in two parts:
part one to contain the legal works published in 1899 in the symposium
Economic Studies and Essays; part two the illegal works. Lenin
included in the second volume his book The Agrarian Programme of
Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution, 1905-1907, which he
had just completed. This plan of publication, however, was not
realised. Only the first part of Volume II under the title The Agrarian
Question came out in the beginning of 1908, containing the following
writings: A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism; The
Handicraft Census of 1894-95 in Perm Gubernia and General Problems of
“Handicraft” Industry, and The Agrarian Question and
the “Critics of Marx” (Chapters I-XI). Part two of the
second volume, for which The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in
the First Russian Revolution, 1905-1907 had been set up, was
confiscated by the police in the printing-press and destroyed.

Volume III was to contain programmatic and polemical articles which had
appeared in the Bolshevik press (Iskra, Vperyod,
Proletary, Novaya Zhizn, and others). The intensification
of repression and censorship persecution against revolutionary literature
prevented the publication of the third volume.

[18]The Emancipation of Labour group—the first Russian
Marxist group founded by G. V. Plekhanov in Switzerland in 1883. Other
members of the group were P. B. Axelrod, L. G. Deutsch, Vera Zasulich, and
V. N. Ignatov.

The Emancipation of Labour group did a great deal for the propaganda of
Marxism in Russia. It translated into Russian, published abroad, and
distributed in Russia Marx’s and Engels’s Manifesto of the
Communist Party, Marx’s Wage-Labour and Capital,
Engels’s Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, and other works
by the founders of Marxism, and also popularised Marxism in its own
publications. Their work dealt a severe blow to Narodism, which was the
chief ideological obstacle to the spread of Marxism and the development of
the Social-Democratic movement in Russia. In his Socialism and the
Political Struggle (1883), Our Differences (1885), and other
writings, Plekhanov criticised the reactionary views of the Narodniks from
the Marxist standpoint (their views concerning the non-capitalist path of
Russia’s development, denial of the leading role of the proletariat
in the revolutionary movement, their subjective-idealistic view on the role
of the individual in history, etc.). Plekhanov’s two drafts of a
programme for Russian Social-Democrats (1883 and 1885) published
by the Emancipation
of Labour group were an important step towards the building of a
Social-Democratic Party in Russia. Plekhanov’s hook The
Development of the Monist View of History (1895) “served to rear
a whole generation of Russian Marxists” (Lenin, see present edition,
Vol. 16, “The Vperyod Faction”). It played a very
important role in spreading Marxist views and stating the case for
dialectical and historical materialism. The group published and distributed
in Russia four volumes of the symposium Sotsial-Demokrat, as well
as a series of popular pamphlets for the workers.

Engels welcomed the appearance of the Emancipation of Labour group
“which sincerely and without reservations accepted the great economic
and historical theories of Marx” (Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels,
Ausgewählte Briefe, Berlin, Dietz Verlag, 1953,
S. 453). Plekhanov and Vera Zasulich were personal friends of Engels and
corresponded with him for many years. The group established contacts with
the international labour movement, and, be ginning with the First Congress
of the Second International (Paris, 1889) and throughout the whole period
of its existence, it represented Russian Social-Democracy at all congresses
of the International.

The group played an important p art in developing revolutionary
consciousness of the Russian working class, although the group had no
practical ties with the workers’ movement in Russia. Lenin pointed out that
the group “only laid the theoretical foundations for the
Social-Democratic movement and took the first step towards the
working-class movement” (see present edition, Vol. 20, “The
Ideological Struggle in the Working-Class Movement”). Moreover, the
members of the group were guilty of serious errors. They over estimated the
role of the liberal bourgeoisie and underestimated the revolutionary role
of the peasantry as a reserve force of the proletarian revolution. These
errors contained the germ of the future Menshevik views adopted by
Plekhanov and other members of the group.

On the initiative of the group, the Union of Russian Social-Democrats
Abroad was founded in 1894. The members of the group with drew from the
Union in 1900 and founded the revolutionary organisation
Sotsial-Demokrat. Members of the group on the editorial boards of
Iskra and Zarya were Plekhanov, Axelrod, and Vera
Zasulich. The Emancipation of Labour group announced its dissolution at the
Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. in August 1903.

[20]Novoye Slovo (New Word)—a monthly scientific, literary,
and political magazine, published by liberal Narodniks in St. Petersburg
from 1894, and by the “legal Marxists” from the spring of
1897. It published two articles by Lenin, “A
Characterisation of Economic Romanticism” and “About a Certain
Newspaper Article”. The magazine was closed down by the tsarist
authorities in December 1897.

[21]Zarya (Dawn)—a Marxist theoretical and political
magazine published by the editors of Iskra in 1901-02. The
following articles by Lenin were published in it: “Casual
Notes”, “The Persecutors of the Zemstvo and the Hannibals of
Liberalism”, the first four chapters of The Agrarian Question and
the “Critics of Marx” (under the title of “The
‘Critics’ on the Agrarian Question”), “Review of Home
Affairs”, and “The Agrarian Programme of Russian
Social-Democracy”. Four issues of the magazine appeared.

[22]Iskra (The Spark)—the first all-Russian illegal
Marxist newspaper, founded by Lenin in 1900. After the Second Congress of
the R.S.D.L.P. it became the Central Organ of the Party. Lenin’s
reference to the old Iskra applies to issues No. 1 to No. 51 of
the paper. After that Iskra became the factional organ of the
Mensheviks.

[23]The Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will) group,
whose members were known as Narodovoltsi, came into existence in
St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1891. Among its original membership were
M.S. Olminsky (Alexandrov) N.L. Meshcheryakov, Y. M. Alexandrova,
A.A. Fedulov, and A.A. Yergin. The group adhered to the Narodnaya Volya
programme. Its press issued a number of illegal pamphlets and leaflets,
Worker’s Miscellany, and two issues of Letuchy
Listok (The Leaflet). The group was suppressed by the police
in April 1894 but shortly resumed its activities. At that period it was in
process of abandoning Narodnaya Volya views for Social-Democracy. The last
issue of Letuchy Listok, No. 4, which appeared in December 1895,
showed clear signs of Social-Democratic influence. The group established
contact with the St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of
the Working Class, printed several of the League’s publications (for
example, Lenin’s Explanation of the Law on Fines Imposed on
Factory Workers), and made arrangements with the League for the joint
publication of the newspaper Rabocheye Dyelo. Arrangements were
also made to use the group’s press to print Lenin’s pamphlet
On Strikes, which was smuggled out of prison in May 1896 (the
manuscript is still missing). This plan did not mature, however, owing to
the discovery and suppression of the printing-press by the police and the
arrest of members of the group in June 1896, after which the group went out
of existence. Eventually some of its members (P.F. Kudelli,
N.L. Meshcheryakov, M.S. Olminsky, and others) became active figures in the
R.S.D.L.P., the majority, however, joining the Socialist-Revolutionary
Party.

TheNarodnoye Pravo (People’s Right) group,
whose members were known as Narodopravtsi, was an illegal organisation of
Russian democratic Intellectuals founded in the summer of 1893 by the
former Narodovoltsi 0.V. Aptekman, A.I. Bogdanovich, A.V. Gedeonovsky,
M.A. Natanson, N.S. Tyutchev, and others. The Narodopravtsi made it their
aim to unite all opposition forces for the fight to win political
reforms. The organisation issued two programmatic documents—“The
Manifesto” and “An Urgent Issue”. It was suppressed by
the tsarist authorities in spring of 1894. For
Lenin’s assessment of the Narodnoye Pravo as a political party see
What the “Friends of the People” Are and How They Fight the
Social-Democrats (present edition, Vol. 1, pp. 320-32) and The
Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats (present edition, Vol. 2,
pp. 344-45). Most of the Narodopravtsi subsequently joined the
Socialist-Revolutionary Party.

[24]Bernsteinism—an opportunist trend in German and
international Social-Democracy hostile to Marxism. It arose in the late
nineteenth century and received its name from Eduard Bernstein, who was the
most outspoken representative of the Right opportunist trend in the German
Social-Democratic Party.

[25]Bezzaglavtsi—members of a semi-Cadet, semi-Menshevik,
group of Russian intellectuals (S.N. Prokopovich, Y.D. Kuskova,
V.Y. Bogucharsky, V.V. Portugalov, V.V. Khizhnyakov, and others), which
came into being when the revolution of 1905-07 was beginning to
decline. The group’s name was derived from the weekly political
periodical Bez Zaglaviya (literally Without a Title)
issued in St. Petersburg in January-May 1906 under the editorship of
Prokopovich. Later the Bezzaglavtsi grouped themselves around the
Left-wing Cadet newspaper Tovarishch. Under the cloak of formal
non-partisanship they advocated the ideas of bourgeois liberalism and
opportunism and supported the revisionists in Russian and international
Social-Democracy.

[31]“Volume 3 of this publication”— meaning the third
volume of the collection Twelve Years, which was never
published.

[26]Novaya Zhizn (New Life)—the first legal
Bolshevik newspaper, published in St. Petersburg as a daily from October 27
(November 9) to December 3 (16), 1905. Lenin took over the editorship upon
his return to Russia in early November. Novaya Zhizn was in fact
the Central Organ of the R.S.D.L.P. Closely associated with the paper were
V. D. Bonch-Bruyevich, V. V. Vorovsky, A. V. Lunacharsky, M. S. Olminsky,
and others. Maxim Gorky actively collaborated and gave the paper great
financial aid. The circulation reached 80,000 copies.

The newspaper was constantly persecuted. Of the twenty-seven issues,
fifteen were confiscated. Following the appearance of issue No. 27 the
taper was closed down by the government. The last issue, No. 2 , came out
illegally.

[27]Vperyod (Forward)—an illegal Bolshevik weekly,
published in Geneva from December 22, 1904 (January 4,1905) to May 5 (18),
1905. Eighteen numbers were issued. The newspaper’s organiser,
manager, and ideological guide was Lenin. Other members of the Editorial
Board were V.V. Vorovsky, A.V. Lunacharsky, and M. S. Olminsky.

The outstanding role which the newspaper played in combating
Menshevism, re-establishing the Party principle, and formulating
and elucidating the tactical issues posed by the rising revolution was
acknowledged in a special resolution of the Third Party Congress, which
recorded a vote of thanks to the Editorial Board.

[28]Cut-off lands (otrezki)—lands which were taken
away (cut off) from the peasants by the landlords when serfdom was
abolished in Russia.

[29]Zemstvo—so-called local self-government bodies headed by the
nobility. Zemstvos were set up in the central gubernias of Russia in
1864. Their powers were restricted to purely local economic affairs
(hospitals, roads, statistics, insurance, etc.). They were subordinate to
the provincial governors and the Ministry of the Interior, who could
overrule any decisions the government found undesirable.

[30]Executive Committee of the Left—the slogan for the
formation of such a committee was put forward by the Bolsheviks in order to
ensure the independence of the class line pursued by the workers’ deputies
in the Duma,to guide the activities of the peasant deputies, and keep them
free from the influence of the Cadets. The Mensheviks countered this slogan
with their slogan of “a national opposition”, that is, support
of the Cadets by the workers’ and peasants’ deputies, the Mensheviks
classing the Cadets as a Left party, along with the Social-Democrats,
Socialist-Revolutionaries, and Trudoviks.

In July 1906, after the First Duma was dissolved, the Executive
Committee of the Left virtually organised itself around the
Social-Democratic group of the Duma. On the initiative of the Executive
Committee of the Left the following manifestoes were issued:
“Manifesto to the Army and Navy” over the signatures of the
Committee of the Social-Democratic Duma group and the Committee of the
Trudovik group; “Manifesto to All the Russian Peasants” signed
also by the A11-Russian Peasant Union, the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P., the
C.C. of the Party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the All-Russian
Railwaymen’s Union, and the All-Russian Teachers’ Union;
“Manifesto to All the People” signed by the above parties
(without the three unions) as well as by the Polish Socialist Party and the
Bund. The manifestoes rallied the people to the revolutionary struggle
against the government and put forward the slogan of a constituent
assembly.